New Student Space Features Mural by Award-Winning Comic Strip Artists and Kent State Alumni
Popular comic strip artists Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers were at Kent State University on March 27 for the official opening of the new student lounge area called The Nest in the Kent Student Center. Batiuk, creator of the Funky Winkerbean comic strip, collaborates with Ayers on Crankshaft.
Had to work the school bus into the college scene somehow!
Very disappointed that Les is not depicted in his yellow shirt.
Note the falling leaf
Les the KSU alum needs a map?
Looks like Crazy Harry didn’t spend Maddie’s college fund on Tarzan comics after all!
Every school in Ohio has a graffiti’ed rock
Jim Kablichnick guest-lectures. The topic is either climate change or intelligent design.
The Crankshaft/Funky time disparity has been suspended here.
For once, Summer must play second fiddle to Queen Keisha.
I thought Dinkle’s uniform no longer fit.
Note Mrs. Dinkle in the stands.
World’s oldest bus driver.
Damn you, Crankshaft!
There she is in that damn hoodie.
So at some point, Bull and his assistant Anne will make the jump to the NCAA.
Jim will have a whole new crop of students to despise.
“…and all we got were these lousy diplomas!”
Bonus visual (pardon the quality but it’s a screen cap from this video): You know the KSU kiddies will turn out en masse to get their signed copies of “Roses in December” by Les Moore!
Son of Stuck Funky 
Please if there is a god in heaven…don’t let this drag on to graduation..
Westview HS staff just assimulate tothe college ranks?
Bull coches an NCAA championship team?
Shaft drives forever?
Fishstick annie never died?
Les becomes the Dean?
No moore cancer?
Lisa is on video tape # 247
I do like Crankshaft’s daughter remembering her time in “Mod Squad.” But what is being auctioned here, the original panels that were then recreated on the walls?
https://www.kent.edu/news/announcements/success/alumni-homecoming-auction.cfm
“Conceiving the story”…LOL! It took “long hours” to think that stuff up? The artwork, sure, but the events pictured consist of fifteen minutes of thought, at most.
1. Isn’t Kent State relatively small, anyway? I mean, you should be able to find your away around.
2. Homecoming–with only girls? I guess this is pretty liberal, anyway but really?
3. Fishstick Annie and Bull would be quite old by then. Perhaps Bull will stuff her corpse full of newspapers and call her “Coach Fairgood”?
4. It looks like Professor Twain is teaching organic chemistry.
5. So EVERYONE in Westview sends their kid to Kent State? That explains a lot.
I like how Maddie, Jinx, Rana, Fishstick Annie, Kablichnick (X2), Mr. Howard’s camcorder, Owen’s chullo, the KSU-Akron Wagon Wheel Trophy, and even Keesterman all show up, but Funky doesn’t get so much as a cameo… unless that’s him handing the Montoni’s pizzas to Keisha while Les and Cayla struggle with the local geography.
Lisa doesn’t appear either, which I wouldn’t mention or even think of as weird if not for the fact that the guy on the bottom left of the small crowd containing K flag man and Harriet Dinkle appears to be John Darling. So no Funky, but John Darling rises from the grave…
billytheskink: Funky doesn’t get so much as a cameo… unless that’s him handing the Montoni’s pizzas to Keisha
Glad you pointed that out, billy. On this announcement page that links to the auction page linked above, there’s a small slideshow that offers a wider-angle view:
Apparently my favorite panel from the mural is not part of the auction; I had to screenshot it from this YouTube video:
Among all the other daily facets of life at KSU, those kids just love attending book signings by the author Les Moore! I like how, in this imagined not-too-distant future, his hair is becoming even more Paulie Walnuts-like.
That “squirrel” looks suspiciously like it has been cross bred with a Norwegian rat. I wonder if current students sit in the Student Union, or wherever this mural is, and ever wonder what the hell it depicts. Odds are none of them have ever read FW or Crankshaft. Hell, since it’s KSU a newspaper may be a foreign concept.
Wait a minute. Owen’s going to get into college?! Will wonders never cease?
Mindy must really love Kent State. She’s still living in the dorms in her early 30’s.
Jeez, Westview must look like Pryipat, Ukraine, now. Practically Every frickin person in the whole damn town is in Kent St!!
In case anyone’s aware, I can testify as 2010s KSU allumn that this mural’s all gone now. They turned they lounge room they were pasted in into an office area for one of the student organizations or something.
So basically Bautik’s efforts to leave a “Funky Felt Tip” mark on his home campus barely even lasted 5 years.